PASSION FOR PUMPKINS
Farm has good harvest despite late start from wet spring
SOUTH CAMBRIDGE, N.Y. » Good soil, ambition and a little luck.
That’s Bryan Herrington’s success formula for raising pumpkins, and it’s obviously working based on his abundant harvest this year.
He hand-plants and fertilizes all eight acres at his farm on Washington County Route 74, 10 miles south of Cambridge.
“I started out with a garden, when I was in high school,” said the 33-year-old Herrington. “I sold 500 on the street corner. The next year I doubled the number, sold all those, and doubled again the year after that. I supplied several Agway stores when I was just out of school.”
Before long, word started spreading about his pumpkins’ high quality and he quickly developed a loyal following of retail customers, so wholesale was no longer needed.
The youngest of 10 children, Herrington, his wife, Lauren, and their two children, live in the house Bryan grew up in, in nearby Buskirk.
Seven years ago, he and his brother, Bill, purchased a small farm, which Bryan alone runs.
At one time, its retail stand was a train station for the Greenwich & Johnsonville Railroad. Another small building was the Buskirk Post Office.
The main, large barn — filled with dozens of pumpkins — has one of the few known mechanical hay presses left in America. Local farmers would bring fresh-cut hay there to be baled. From a second story loft, hay was fed into a chute. The press, powered by a horse walking in circles, would churn out one large bale after another, some weighing more than 200 pounds.
Original stenciled lettering says the device was patented in 1897 and made by P.K. Dederick’s Sons of Albany.
It’s one of the many fascinating pieces of agricultural history that makes this farm a destination for area residents.
Plus, its 70 varieties of pumpkins and gourds.
Lucille and Paul McCue, of Clifton Park, took home a carload on Friday, which kicked off the farm’s first full weekend of autumn sales.
“It’s hard to stop,” Lucille said. “They come in all different shapes. They last a long time, usually up to Thanksgiving Day. And it’s a pretty ride over here.”
Herrington’s main business is raising and selling hay. Much of it goes to horses at Saratoga Casino Hotel’s harness racing track, along with “back yard” equine enthusiasts throughout the area.
He also grows corn and grain to produce custommade, non-GMO feed for hog and chicken farmers.
But his passion is pumpkins.
“I buy brand-new seeds every year,” Herrington said. “That’s a good way to keep blight and powdery mildew down.”
After preparing fields with a tractor and discer, he walks and sews all seeds by hand, which prevents waste and produces greater yields. He also fertilizes by hand with the commercial product 10-10-10.
“I use half as much that way,” Herrington said.
As a one-man operation, he does everything possible to keep costs down.
However, Herrington charges the same amount now, from $2 to $10 depending on pumpkin size, that he did 16 years ago when first starting out.
Even he is surprised by this year’s crop, considering how wet spring and early summer was.
“I didn’t get done planting until mid-June,” he said. “Normally I’m done by the end of May. I’m surprised they finished up. The breeds are getting stronger and stronger for pumpkins.”